Electrowetting Solar House
Solar radiation, along with secondary solar-powered resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the available renewable energy on earth. To harvest the solar energy, the most common way is to use solar panels with photovoltaics (PV) or concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) cells. Current CPV solar systems employ III-V cells which are more efficient than traditional silicon-based PV cells (40% vs. 15%-19%). But these high-efficiency CPV cells are much more expensive than PV cells so that concentrators are needed to reduce the required number of III-V cells. Most conventional solar concentrators use mechanical moving parts (e.g., motor) to track the sun and are not suitable for residential rooftop applications due to their high power consumption and their bulky body, which raises reliability concerns.
We plan to develop a domelike solar concentrator based on electrowetting. The optofluidic system will integrate electrowetting solar cells with high-efficiency CPV cells, resulting in a wide tracking range for maximum energy generation. Key features of thus-formed solar house include adaptive sun tracking, no mechanical moving parts, low-power consumption, and quiet operation. Most importantly, the elimination of bulky tracking hardware and quiet operation will allow extensive residential deployment of concentrated solar power. In comparison with traditional silicon-based PV solar cells, the electrowetting-based self-tracking technology will generate ~70% higher green energy with a 50% cost reduction. The success of this program has huge market impacts and will enable a paradigm shift in the role of concentrating photovoltaics in the U.S. energy market.